Medical retrieval devices including, for example, baskets and forceps, are often utilized for removing organic material (e.g., blood clots, tissue, and biological concretions such as urinary, biliary, and pancreatic stones) and inorganic material (e.g., components of a medical device or other foreign matter), which may obstruct or otherwise be present within a patient's body cavities. For example, concretions can develop in certain parts of the body, such as in the kidneys, pancreas, ureter, and gallbladder. Minimally invasive medical procedures are used to remove these concretions through natural orifices, or through an incision, such as during a percutaneous nephrolithotomy (PNCL) procedure. Other procedures may include endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP), which is a procedure for treating the bile and pancreatic ducts of a patient. Further, lithotripsy and ureteroscopy, for example, are used to treat urinary calculi (e.g., kidney stones) in the ureter of a patient.
One problem commonly associated with retrieval of such concretions occurs where the stone or other material is too large to be removed through a sheath and/or a scope, e.g., ureteroscope, en bloc (e.g., whole and/or in one piece). For example, the stone or other material may be too large to pass through a lumen defined by the sheath (e.g., a renal sheath) and the working channel of such a ureteroscope. In such cases, a medical professional may be required to break up such stones and or other material so as to be small enough to pass through the sheath and/or the working channel of such a ureteroscope. Often, however, a medical professional may not be able to readily determine which stones or other material will be required to be broken up prior to removal through the sheath and/or working channel. Accordingly, the medical professional may deliver a retrieval device (e.g., a basket and/or forceps) through the working channel of the ureteroscope, capture the stone or other material in the retrieval device, and then attempt to retrieve the stone or other material through the sheath and/or scope, only to subsequently determine the stone or other material is too large to be retrieved through the working channel of the ureteroscope and/or the lumen of the sheath. Accordingly, the medical professional may be required to tediously determine which stones or other material must be broken up (e.g., via a lithotripter or the like) by a method of trial and error. Such a process may be time consuming and expensive.